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- Title
Why Is The Ad Populum A Fallacy?
- Authors
Walton, Douglas N.
- Abstract
This article explains why the argumentum ad populum is a fallacy. The traditional informal fallacy of argumentum ad populum is standardly characterized as the fallacy committed by directing an emotional appeal to the feelings or enthusiasms of the people to win assent to an argument not adequately supported by proper evidence. Perhaps what initially seems most wrong or fallacious about the use of the ad populum is that such an argument is directed to a specific group of actual persons rather than being an attempt to argue from true premisses. In arguing ad populum, when one selects premisses, it matters little whether the premisses are true. Ad populum is often, perhaps usually, characterized as a fallacy that is essentially emotive. So construed, it is a questionable move because it attempts to short-circuit rational argument by jamming it with emotional interference.
- Subjects
APPEAL to popular opinion (Logical fallacy); LOGICAL fallacies; PUBLIC opinion; PHILOSOPHY
- Publication
Philosophy & Rhetoric, 1980, Vol 13, Issue 4, p264
- ISSN
0031-8213
- Publication type
Article